I’m not sure which is worse, navigating 1 to 4 million people or getting up on a winter weekend for a 5:30 a.m. “event.” However, for those living in the DC area or visiting, this is a bit more of a "quirky" side of history --> the inauguration rehearsal. (And so-o-o exclusive. ) After all, "millions" might be at the inaugural itself but only the totally insane would get up pre-dawn on a Sunday to view the inauguration run-through.

How do Washington, DC residents celebrate inaugurations? Will you have a houseful of company or will you leave town? Should be chaotic and fun for the next two weeks.

It's been a while since I celebrated one. I moved to Washington during Bush-41's Administration so the first inaugural I was here for was Clinton's. I really got into that one as I had campaigned for him. I went to the parade, which attracted a huge crowd -- it was incredibly crowded and this one's supposed to be "worse" -- and I went to one of the official inaugural balls, so I got to see both Bill and Hillary and Al and Tipper as they made their rounds that night.

I remember attending a swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol as well, but I can't remember if it was Clinton's first or second one.

I attended Bush-43's first inaugural parade, mostly in support of all the protestors. I was not a Bush supporter and felt pretty bitter about the whole thing.

I can't remember going anywhere near his second inaugural.

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Friends of mine are planning on staying with friends who live in DC so they are looking forward to the events and being part of the celebration.

My niece lives in Reston, Virginia so I have a place to stay but am not even going to try to go. Instead, I'll attend a local Inaugural Ball.

I don't know what I'm going to do this inaugural. They've been painting such a dire picture of overwhelming crowds, security restrictions, transportation gridlock that it sounds like far more trouble than it's worth. Washington has a hard enough time dealing with its "usual" events that I have little faith that they'll be able to handle this.

That being said, I may try and attend something in light of the historic nature of the whole thing. My office is right along the National Mall and I have co-workers who are actually planning to either sleep in our office building all night or come in super-duper early and hang-out here until things start happening. No matter what, there's going to be a great deal of walking and standing, without any guarantee that you'll see anything you couldn't have seen much, much better at home on your TV. I'm going to play it by ear. We'll see how crowded this city actually starts becoming on 1/18-1/19, how the authorities are handling things, and what the weather's like.

I wasn't an Obama supporter from the get-go, so I'm not as invested in being right here among the millions.

Well, I "celebrated" the 2001 inaugural by protesting, and the 2004 inaugural by hoping if I ignored it, it wouldn't be true. I think how you celebrate an inaugural has a lot to do with your side of the aisle. So, this year makes a change for me. Right now I am debating flats vs. heels for the evening. Sensible me knows flats are the right choice, so that's ultimately what I'll do, but I really want the pretty navy ones with the silver spike heel.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the swearing in, so I'm going to go to that and then probably hang with friends to watch the parade on TV until it is time to start getting ready to stand in security, coat check and bar lines.

I am also stocking up on groceries and tried to get all of my errands run today to avoid crowds on the weekend. I live a few blocks from the White House, and near quite a few of the downtown hotels, so I have a feeling everything is going to be crazy.

My favorite thing? Midatlantic Leather Weekend is ALSO that weekend, so there will be an interesting mix of crowds in my neighborhood.

I'll be going. My friend got tickets, so we'll be going together. I'm sure it will be a complete mess downtown, but I'm sort of excited. I've done similar things before (the whole "a-million-people-descend-on-one-location" thing) before, though maybe not quite to this extent. It is a little bit far to walk from where I live (6 miles or so), but I think it can be done if I only mass-transportation it half way or so._________________Jane AAR

The only thing that interests me enough to brave the crowds is the concert on Sunday.

I have found the way this has all been handled, with the continuous degradation in the ability for average people to participate to be a real turn-off. If they wanted to discourage the average Joe from bearing witness, they've done it.

We have friends coming in from Chicago. They live in Hyde Park and sponsored a fund raiser for Obama when he first ran for Congress (and lost). At the time they were both very impressed with him, although one of them felt that Obama was too intellectual and measured in his judgments to get far in American politics.

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do. If I truly want to see what's going on, I'll watch it on TV. But if I want to feel I'm participating in history, even if it's cold and I'll probably wind up standing far from anything visually interesting, I'll go to the Mall.

It seems like a lot of us are in a celebratory mood so it's fitting to make the inauguration a very special event. This is America's equivalent to a coronation so we have to do it up right. People are happy and in the mood to celebrate so it should be a fun time for all. Nothing wrong with pomp and pageantry.

Obama taking the train to D.C. was a nice touch. I just hope he plans on expanding rail service in this country. I feel we were short sighted in eliminating trains as part of our transportation system. Other than the interstate highway system and the airlines, how else can we travel in this country? Certain regions of America have less rail access than other parts and that puts them at a disadvantage. The rest of the world relies on trains, why don't we?

The trains in D.C. are great. I went there once for a protest, and you can get just about anywhere in a short amount of time in a fairly clean method of transport. Now we just need initiatives to expand the D.C. system to everywhere else. _________________Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

The trains in D.C. are great. I went there once for a protest, and you can get just about anywhere in a short amount of time in a fairly clean method of transport. Now we just need initiatives to expand the D.C. system to everywhere else.

I don't know. Metro isn't as good as it use to be. It's getting old and there's constant track work/single tracking, broken escalators, schedule disruptions because of a falling snowflake.

But, anyway, I just got back from standing on my office street corner for an hour waiting for Obama and Biden to come out of the State Department so we could wave at him. (I work across the street from State.) We almost thought they were going in the opposite direction, but they went right by us in two stretch limos with the little flags and presidential seals. Don't know if one car has a vice-presidential seal or whether both cars had presidential seals and one was a decoy.... Somebody in that tinted car waved at us.

The trains in D.C. are great. I went there once for a protest, and you can get just about anywhere in a short amount of time in a fairly clean method of transport. Now we just need initiatives to expand the D.C. system to everywhere else.

I don't know. Metro isn't as good as it use to be. It's getting old and there's constant track work/single tracking, broken escalators, schedule disruptions because of a falling snowflake.

Sounds like money needs to be spent on infrastructure. I've used the Metro the several times I've visited D.C. and it's wonderful(course that's been a few years ago-haven't been lately). But at least an investment was made in mass transit and it has paid off.

I also like the El in Chicago. Have used it to get around and it's pretty good as well.

When I visited D.C. back in the early 80s I was staying with a friend who lived in Montgomery county. We took the Metro almost every day into D.C. to go sightseeing. Then, we decided to visit a friend on Long Island. So we took the Amtrak to New York City. From there we got on the Long Island Railroad(or whatever its called) to Stony Brook. Our trip was all by rail. It was a great way to get around. So I like trains.